The next generation of aerospace entrepreneurs have begun their mission: to boldly go where NASA can鈥檛 afford to go any more
ON 4 JUNE this year, under the sweltering Florida sun, hundreds of rocket-watchers cluster around the swampy fringes of Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral. At 2.45 pm they get what they are waiting for: the rocket on the launch platform fires up its engines and roars into the sky. Seconds later, it is a mere flicker of light in the deep blue above, and 10 minutes after lift-off it reaches Earth orbit. By all accounts, a flawless flight.
Most rocket launches these days are routine affairs, but this one was special. It was not ordered by NASA or the US air force, and the rocket had not been built by Boeing or Lockheed Martin, the two giants of US aerospace. This was the first launch of a rocket called Falcon 9, built from scratch by an 8-year-old outfit called SpaceX. The launch wasn鈥檛 just a triumph for SpaceX: it was also a giant step towards a space age in which agile start-ups will play a leading part. At least, that鈥檚 the plan.
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Two big changes are driving the space industry in this direction. The first is the impending end of the space shuttle era, with the last flight due some time in the next nine months. The second, and possibly more significant one, is the huge cost-cutting exercise under way in the US. Earlier this year President Barack Obama proposed cancelling the funding for NASA鈥檚 $97 billion Constellation programme, which aimed to return humans to the moon. In its place, a relatively meagre $6 billion will be funnelled into speeding up the commercial development of new launchers and spacecraft that will take over where the shuttle leaves off.
NASA has long used commercial contractors to build its hardware. Texas-based Spacehab has designed and built science modules for the shuttle; Zero Gravity Corporation of Vienna, Virginia, conducts parabolic flights for microgravity research; SpaceDev, based in Poway, California, makes small and inexpensive research satellites; and XCOR Aerospace of Mojave, California, has been contracted to develop rocket engines. But the Obama plan represents something rather different.
In the old way of doing things, NASA typically paid its contractors whatever it cost them to build the launch vehicle or spacecraft it had commissioned. It is often argued that this is why so many projects have run wildly over budget when development didn鈥檛 go to plan. Under the Obama scheme, NASA and the contractor will agree a fixed price and time frame for the project, with the contractor assuming the financial risk. NASA hopes this will foster a new private industry that will fund the upfront development costs and be willing to take a high-risk, potentially high-profit gamble that their services will be bought by NASA and others.
The plan follows on the heels of a report issued last autumn by a presidential committee led by retired Lockheed Martin chairman Norman Augustine. Prompted by missed technical targets and ever-spiralling costs for Constellation, the committee concluded that the project was 鈥減erpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources鈥�.
A hazardous enterprise
Constellation鈥檚 supporters- among them Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon- retorted that the programme had in fact made substantial progress and that halting it now would be a mistake. Human space flight, they argued, was an inherently expensive and potentially hazardous enterprise that cannot be done on the cheap. They saved their harshest criticisms for the committee鈥檚 most significant recommendation: that commercial companies, not NASA, should ultimately take responsibility for developing and running human space flight to low-Earth orbit.
Previous commercial space projects have not necessarily offered a good precedent. The first private attempt to develop and build a space rocket, the Percheron, came to grief when the rocket exploded on its launch pad during an engine test in 1981. One of Percheron鈥檚 backers, David Hannah, subsequently put together a team that in September 1982 successfully launched its Conestoga rocket to an altitude of 313 kilometres. It was the first privately backed rocket to reach space. But difficulties plagued later versions of Conestoga, and rising costs led to the rocket being scrapped.
Perhaps the most notorious of the early ventures was the Roton, a cone-shaped vehicle that sprouted helicopter blades from its nose to slow descent and control landing. Problems with the technology and a shortage of funds meant that the Roton never made it onto the launch pad, although its rotor system did carry a demonstration version across the California desert on several occasions.
Things have changed dramatically since those shaky early days. Virgin Galactic鈥檚 prototype tourist vehicle SpaceShipTwo made its first flight in March this year, attached to its mother ship. The company says it has $46 million on deposit from 340 would-be space tourists, and that SpaceShipTwo remains on target for a maiden suborbital flight in 2011 or 2012. XCOR is also working on a suborbital tourism vehicle, the Lynx, as is SpaceDev with its Dream Chaser.
Of all the new crop of companies, SpaceX appears to have the most immediately promising prospects. It has 22 commercial flights on its launch manifest between 2010 and 2015, of which 10 are for customers other than NASA. The company scored more work only weeks after the maiden Falcon 9 launch, when communications satellite company Iridium agreed to pay it $492 million to launch a new fleet of satellites between 2015 and 2017. The company鈥檚 founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, says its organisational structure and management style are the key to its success. 鈥淲e鈥檙e very Silicon Valley 鈥� low on overheads, high in motivation. Everyone has stock options in the company, and everyone works in a cubicle, including me. We are the coming of a new generation.鈥�
Also up-and-coming is Bigelow Aerospace, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It wants to bring crewed orbital space flight to countries that have not previously been able to afford it. Between now and 2020, the company is planning 150 commercial launches to put the inflatable space stations it has designed into orbit, where they would host researchers and space tourists. 鈥淲e could go from six astronauts in orbit to 60, and then 600 as the economies of scale begin to kick in,鈥� says Michael Gold of Bigelow.
鈥淲e could go from six astronauts in orbit now to 60, and then 600 when the economies of scale kick in鈥�
To launch its prototype station, called Genesis, the company turned to Russia and its Soyuz rocket. But a Falcon 9 flight will launch its first space station capable of housing a crew, called Sundancer, in 2014. Bigelow is also exploring the possibility of docking its modules to the International Space Station (ISS).
SpaceX itself has ambitions to launch crewed space vehicles on its rockets. June鈥檚 Falcon 9 launch delivered a mock-up of the SpaceX Dragon capsule into orbit. The real thing should be capable of delivering both cargo and crew to the ISS.
While the financial structure of the private space industry is new, some of the technology rests firmly on what has gone before, harvesting some of the fruits of the billions of dollars invested by government space programmes in research and development. For example, Falcon 9鈥檚 nine-engine design was inspired by the multi-engine Saturn V rockets that sent astronauts on their way to the moon 40-plus years ago. This design allowed the launch to continue safely if one of the engines failed, as happened on several Saturn flights. Masten Space Systems of Mojave, California, revived engine technology developed for the Apollo lunar lander for its Xoie rocket, which last year won first prize in NASA鈥檚 Lunar Lander Challenge.
This is not to say that the private sector isn鈥檛 innovating, too. XCOR has provided NASA with an engine that burns liquid oxygen and methane, and has also developed the rocket engines that are powering many vehicles in the nascent rocket-racing industry 鈥� an attempt to reproduce the excitement of the barnstorming competitions that galvanised interest in early aviation. Bigelow Aerospace has managed to both borrow and innovate: its inflatable Genesis I and II prototype space stations, now circling the Earth, build on 1960s-era technology that NASA had discarded at mock-up stage.
Though NASA鈥檚 role is changing, it is still highly influential. Its Centennial Challenges competitions such as the Lunar Lander Challenge offer prizes for the best solution to what it thinks will be key technological challenges for the near future. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Centennial Challenges initiative was itself modelled on a privately funded competition: the X Prize.
Baby steps
NASA鈥檚 most significant nod to newer companies was the creation in 2006 of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) programme, which gave several firms, including SpaceX, more than $200 million to support the development of launchers and spacecraft that can carry cargo to the ISS. In a more recent phase of COTS, NASA awarded contracts to SpaceX and Virginia-based Orbital Sciences to deliver cargo, possibly beginning next year. Each company stands to earn $1.5 billion by 2016.
But even the most ambitious of the space start-ups don鈥檛 expect to supplant the established aerospace giants. There are indications that the agency is not entirely comfortable about handing control to industries outside its direct sphere of influence. So long-time NASA contractor Lockheed Martin, for example, is continuing to develop a scaled-down version of the Orion capsule to act as a 鈥渓ifeboat鈥� for the ISS, augmenting or replacing the Soyuz rocket. One of the remnants of Constellation to escape Obama鈥檚 axe, the project has prompted complaints that it unfairly favours Lockheed Martin. 鈥淥ur Dragon capsule can serve as a lifeboat, too,鈥� says Elon Musk of SpaceX. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 an actual need for Orion except that it鈥檚 a solution to a political problem.鈥�
When it comes to carrying humans to and from the ISS, Musk accepts that Boeing and Lockheed Martin will probably continue to do most of the heavy lifting. 鈥淔or commercial crew, Boeing and Lockheed will probably take the bulk of funding, with SpaceX hopefully taking a strong third place,鈥� says Musk.
What happens beyond Earth orbit is still up for grabs. The Ares I-X rocket, a survivor of the Constellation programme, which made a successful test flight in October 2009, could still be the precursor for a larger vehicle that would carry astronauts back to the moon. And earlier this month, SpaceX unveiled plans for a heavy-lift Falcon X and Falcon XX that might serve the same purpose. However, no commercial space company has announced missions beyond Earth orbit just yet. Trips to Mars and even the moon are on hold for now while NASA and its partners work out how to put people in orbit for less.
